She had not expected too much of her own powers. When she appeared on the stage, in a plain black dress, with a little black veil wound around her golden braids, and every eye in the densely-crowded house was fixed upon her, I saw--I was sitting at the piano to play her accompaniments--her face flush for a moment. But its natural hue instantly returned, and she sang her aria from Orpheus, several melodies from Iphigenia in Tauris, and Mignon's song composed by Beethoven, with such power and simple beauty that it seemed as if the tempests of life which had stirred the inmost depths of her soul had only served to bring the flower of her art to still more superb development. The effect was so profound and overwhelming that a storm of applause, such as had never greeted even the finest scenes of the great actor, shook the theater. She bowed modestly, with a sad smile that won every heart. When, in the waiting-room, I congratulated her, her face clouded. "Hush," she whispered hurriedly. "Would you tell the victim, about to be offered as a sacrifice, that the garlands are becoming?" The other parts of the programme, two comic soliloquies by Laban, and some of Schiller's ballads recited by our _ingenue_, were well received. When I accompanied Frau Luise home, I held in the box under my arm a very large sum received from the evening's entertainment. When we reached her room, I wished to give her the money. "No," she replied, "henceforth you must be the treasurer. I shall make but one stipulation--that you do not entirely forget yourself, but share equally with the rest. With foolish generosity you have spent all your savings in order to retain a laborious situation here, for which you received neither thanks nor payment. What do you intend to do now?" "That will depend upon you, Frau Luise." Her eyes sought the floor, then, raising them to mine with an indescribably tender glance, she said: "No, my friend, we part this very day, this very hour. You need have no anxiety about me. I shall not pine away and die. You know that I am very strong, or how could I have endured everything?--and, as I am no longer a Canoness, I must not shrink from a little labor. But you must try to return to the life from which your friendship for me has torn you. Promise me that, after you have attended to the last details of business here, you will go back to your old profession, if not as a clergyman, as a teacher, or in some scholarly occupation. I will watch your course from a distance. You will promise, will you not?" "Frau Luise," I stammered, "do you wish to banish me? Do you not know--"